Topic: Diary of a Fireside Woman

[Ke-ke wan]

Certainly, I wont post the entire thing in here, its too big, but I thought I would add a few new pieces as I work on them.
I've got just a few chapters left to write.  But I've been stalling, reluctant to re-live some of the scenes.  Obviously recap of the events is important, so I buckled down and wrote one today.  It's rough draft, still.

I’ve Fallen, but I’ve got to get up


It was late at night; Myron had been drinking as per usual at this time in our lives.   On this particular night he had also done some LSD.   I had been around him before when he had been doing hallucinogenics and he didn’t usually become violent.  Usually I could breathe a sigh of relief if he was doing mind expanding drugs because I knew I’d bee safe.  For whatever reason, these types of drugs took the pressure off Myron and the fear out of me, for I knew he wasn’t going to get angry, he wasn’t going to explode and above all else,  he wasn’t likely to hurt me.

At this time we were living in a double-wide trailer just outside of town.   It was less than a ten minute drive, so close enough if we needed anything but also nice and private.  Oh how Myron loved to have his privacy. 

Myron had decided, quite late into the night, that we had to go to Granny’s house to get something.  He had stashed some dope, cocaine I believe at Granny’s for safekeeping and now found himself in dire need.   I needed to drive him to the farm right away.   Of course, I obliged.

Once at the farm,  Myron began rummaging around here and there, behind washing machines and freezers and inside of cardboard boxes in the storage area.   No matter where he looked he could not find his package.  I had no idea where it was and no matter how many times he asked me, I couldn’t tell him where he had put it.  Heck, I didn’t even know it existed until he confessed to hiding it.

As much as I could, I helped him try to locate this thing that had his coke hidden inside of it.  All I knew was that I was looking for some sort of silver coloured container, with cocaine inside of it.  As the search wore on, Myron got extremely agitated and I was beginning to get nervous.   Now, what had been a relatively calm search had turned into a catastrophe!   Overturned boxes, contents spilled on the ground, displaced furniture, broken dresser drawers,  motor vehicles torn apart.  Anything that had been in the basement that night was not safe from being destroyed.  Everything that got in his way, was torn to pieces or thrown on the ground.

Sometime during the search, Myron came upon the litter box belonging to our Cat “Billy”.   We had only been living in our new trailer for two days and for some reason I had overlooked bringing Billy’s litterbox to the new pad.   It was badly in need of a cleaning.   Myron was quick to point out how much the litterbox stunk and was also quick to blame me for not cleaning it sooner.  Nevermind that I had just moved all of our belongings, by way of a small Hyndai Pony, load, by tiny load, from Granny’s basement the trailer and then totally unpacked and put it away all by myself.  Nevermind that I had also been working a full time job at the same time and Myron was doing not much but drinking and partying.  And nevermind that Billy was an outdoor cat and wouldn’t really need the litterbox at the new place anyway.  It would be just as easy to dump it out and forget about it.

But Myron wanted to make a point.  And make a point he did.  He dumped the dirty litter all over the floor of Granny’s basement in a dusty smelly cloud and, when I attempted to comment, he got extremely angry and demanded I find  “The dirty flowering cat!”   I knew Billy wasn’t at the Farm, so wasn’t worried for his safety, weakly pretended to look for him just to keep Myron from exploding.   “Where the flower is that filthy cat, Lor?  Where the flower did he go?”  I didn’t answer.  I couldn’t.  By this time, fear had begun to paralyze me and my vocal chords barely worked.  All I could manage was to squeak out a small “don’t know.”  It was a lie, I did know full well where Billy was, but certainly was not going to divulge the information with Myron on a tirade.  Who knows what he would do when he found the cat?   What could he possibly have planned? 

In his search for the cat, Myron came upon many animals; the farm was quite full of cats and dogs at that time, good for micing and guarding.  Most of the animals scattered when they heard his voice.  They knew to fear when he got this way.   Patches, Granny’s old Blue Healer, though was unfearful of Myron and happened to get in his way, this night.   Before I could fully realize what was happening,  Myron was roaring at Patches “Patchy get the flower over here you stupid flowering dog!” The situation had quickly turned into something so very ugly!

Myron picked Patchy up from where he was now cowering at the bottom of the front door stairway, walked up the stairs with the dog, yelling and cursing the whole way.  As if Patchy somehow was responsible for the dirty litterbox.  As if Patchy would somehow help him find the cat.  “flowering dirty cat!  flowering filthy animals!”   

My fear, once only paralyzing my voice, was now paralyzing my entire body.  I had a deep sense of foreboding about what Myron was going to do to Patches.  My senses failed me though as I tried to rationalize.  Myron had had Patches for many many years, he was his faithful companion.  Surely he would never do anything to harm him.   My eyes, though, overrode any of the rationalities I was making as I ruefully bore witness to what he was about to do.

Myron picked up Patchy, not a small dog, just like he was a rag doll, packed him up the stairs to the balcony and swift and mercilessly as I have ever seen dropped Patches two stories down to the Orchard ground below.   For a long while, Patchy did not move.  Nobody moved or spoke.  I don’t know if I was even breathing.   Time seemed to stand still, frozen as I was, frozen as Patches seemed to be on the ground below me.  Minutes, frozen seemed to turn into hours with nobody moving a hair.  I was beginning to wonder if Patch was able to move.  Terrified of moving myself, I desperately wanted to go and help him, but was torn between wanting to help the dog and fearing for my own safety if I was to do so.  Finally, Patch moved a muscle.  He tried to get up on all fours but was unable.  He moved into a slinky crawling position and slowly inched his way out of sight.

Patchy’s movement seemed to break the silence of the moment and Myron snapped back to reality.   His anger was back with a vengeance.   The mission to find the dirty, smelly cat, still foremost in his mind.

He ordered me to get in the car and drive to the trailer.  “I’m gonna get that filthy flowerin’ cat yet!”  So, drive to the trailer I did, the entire time hoping and praying that Billy would be nowhere in sight when we arrived.

Sadly, as soon as we got to the trailer, Billy was sitting on the front steps as eager as he ever was to greet us.  My heart sank.  The thought of what Myron had just done to Patchy his beloved companion made me sick to my stomach and the fear of what he would do to Billy, a small cat, was nearly too much to bear.

Swiftly, wasting no time at all, Myron jumped out of the car, grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck, threw him in the air, bellowing “you filthy flowering cat!”.

I ran to Myron, in a feeble attempt to stop him from hurting my cat, but not in time to do much but make him angry.  As if in slow motion, I stood by limply as Billy soared up into the air and then back down toward Myron.  Like a football player, about to make a play, he kicked poor little Billy right in the midsection.    I didn’t see where Billy landed and almost didn’t want to. The entire scenario was sickening and gut wrenching.   First lovable old Patchy had been injured at the hands of Myron and now my poor little kitty.   All I could do was hope that Billy was okay, but knowing myron’s strength and seeing the force of the kick, my hope was quickly overshadowed by a sense of guilt and doom.

Myron then ran out toward the trailer shouting “I’m getting the flowerin’ gun!”  At this point, terror was flowing through my veins like fire.  I had no idea who his next victim would be, but could only hope that nobody got in his way.  Then I remembered I had locked the trailer door.   Terrified that he would get to the locked door before I could open it, I ran as fast as I could up the stairs to unlock it.  I was too slow.  Myron reached the locked door before I could get to it and as he tried to knob and realized it was locked, let out a scary bellow “Open the flowering door, CUNT!”  I fumbled with my keys, but just couldn’t get them into the lock fast enough.  Myron pushed me out of the way, throwing me down the stairs and then busted the door open with a shoulder thrust.

I’m unsure how long I was on the ground.  But came to realize that my head had landed on a steel rim from a tire.  The pain was excruciating and I could feel warm blood dripping onto my face and down the back of my neck.  I felt the back of my head with trembling hands to find a huge gash from where I had hit my head on the rim.  I was dazed and confused, but tried to get up.  Dizzy from the blow, I grabbed onto the stair railing and attempted to walk back up the stairs.  I looked in the still open door of the trailer to see that Myron wasn’t in there, but was already sitting in the car at this point. 

I got back into the car, per Myron’s barked out orders. This time I was in the passenger seat.  I could still feel the warm blood trickling down my head, and starting to congeal so I pulled my hood over my head to try to hide it.  And as we drove back to the farm, Myron had one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the rifle.   Like a scene from a bad movie, he was shooting with his left hand and guiding the car with his right.  Not caring what the target was or how many other cars were on the road, Myron fired shot after shot out the driver side window, sometimes hitting stop signs and sometimes hitting nothing at all.

By the time we got to the farm, my fear had once again paralyzed me and I was unable to get out of the car.  Immobilized by my terror I could only watch in horror as Myron got out of the car waving the shot gun in the air and shouting “Wake the flower up Granny!  Wake the flower up!”

“Boom!  Boom! Boom!”  Three shots fired into the wooden front door of the farmhouse left a deadening echo in the Orchard and a gaping hole in the door.  Silence, like a knife, cut through the midnight air.  With no words at all, Myron got back into the car and put the gun in the back seat.   A hush descended upon us as we drove back to the trailer, Myron snapping back into an ordinary, non-violent mood as if none of this had ever happened.  I, with dried blood, crusty all over my hair and face, tried to make sense of the night, but could not. 

[Nichi]

Horrendous...

[Michael]

Writing is not a bad way to exorcise the past.

[Ke-ke wan]

Writing is not a bad way to exorcise the past.

It's been one of my greatest tools, so far. 

[Ke-ke wan]

Interesting, how you make this stuff the business of people around you.
 

Really?  And how do I do that?  By writing a book about my experiences?  It's cathartic for me to do so.  There is a lot of energy still stuck and bound in that area of my life.  It takes a lot of work to free it and writing is one way for me to do so.

I doubt that I have the power to make it anyone else's business.  It may spark emotion in others, writing does that.  How did it make you feel, I wonder?

[Builder]

Really?  And how do I do that?  By writing a book about my experiences?  It's cathartic for me to do so.  There is a lot of energy still stuck and bound in that area of my life.  It takes a lot of work to free it and writing is one way for me to do so.

I doubt that I have the power to make it anyone else's business.  It may spark emotion in others, writing does that.  How did it make you feel, I wonder?

Well, it did not make me feel at all - I remember your previous installments of this stuff to know what is in there.

When you made it public previous time (about five years ago), you said you were writing a book with the purpose of telling your story to the world - in other words, you were perpetuating your story.

When you were asked then as to why you were posting this stuff (the intent behind doing it was clearly  not about getting rid of it, but about eliciting pats on your back), you did not answer, but stopped posting it.

Now it is back again. Your horror story. Knowing the strength of your subconscious, it is completely reasonable to ask why?

Mind you that remembering the story in itself is merely a precondition to pulling the energy back. The latter is done through breathing.

As you opted for resurrecting the post I opted not to post, be prepared for more questions like that.

It is not the act, but the intent behind it that matters and I deeply wonder about yours.

Re-telling the story might serve as a good tool (no argument with Michael), but the intent determines with what outcome and why.

[Ke-ke wan]

You're a funny guy Juhani. You complain that I am not doing the work
And yet when I share my process, you criticize. 

[Ke-ke wan]

PS, not that I owe an explanation, but writing this book has been difficult. I've struggled with it over the years
But I know when it is time to work on it. That time is now.  You are free to doubt my intent, however this was a promise I made to myself and know that
I need to keep it. Once the book is finished I have more healing to do before I can move to a deeper level of forgiveness--
Of both Myron and myself.

Like I said before, I'd appreciate if you'd mind your own business, Juhani.  I understand your view and further comments are not necessary.

[Nichi]

You've made clear your intent, Lori - and I know how hard it is to follow through. I've had similar stories myself which I've kept buried, from myself.

You won't know the outcome until you complete following it through. So I'm for us all standing back and giving you the opportunity. May it serve as the exorcism and liberation it should be!

[Builder]

I understand your view and further comments are not necessary.

Then don't be so desperate to invoke them.
Instead of fussing around, getting stuck in thorns and complaining, simply do your job.

[Michael]

Writing about intense events from our past is a very effective way to 'pass them out' of our energy body. This is why DJ recommended Carlos publish his notes.

It's not just a matter of writing, but of sharing with the world.

I have recommended many here write their stories, but so far Lori is the only one who has done this in a book form, aside from me. Writing and sharing here in Soma is also effective, and is why I encourage members to 'tell their stories' in Soma. Even if that doesn't elicit great response, it is still very efficacious.

There is a strange heaviness that comes from hoarding intense memories. Soma's intent is for personal growth, and thus everything that happens in here comes under that umbrella. That is quite different to telling your stories to friends at coffee or at a party - such telling is about identity reification.

There is the danger that such reification is also brought about from telling in Soma, but on the whole, so long as the story telling has the purpose of dedicated depth, as opposed to superficial restating of old stagnant preferences, then the exorcising of energy bubbles in our being will ensue.

There are many members in Soma who don't have the courage to speak of their emotional life, just as there are many who don't know how to get in touch with their emotional life, and thus deny it is happening at all. For those who have dug and exposed their underbelly, it is quite obvious when someone is blocking the natural expression of their emotions. It comes out, but it comes out distorted and destructive, in ways that the person often attempts to project onto others.

It is far better to just fess up to these intense moments in life - spit it out till there is no need to spit it out.

Don't fall for the belief that your past traumas are too personal or private. Write it down and share it. But write it down thoroughly - including all the small details - go into it in full detail. No good just talking quickly or obscurely. Don't hang on to it like some precious secret that you feel you don't want to burden others with - that is a ruse. In fact we love to harbour our dirty little secrets, as it oddly makes us feel special.

Now that Juhani has put himself forward, I presume he is happy to be used as an example. Juhani has his own emotionally traumatic past, about which he has only spoken in a private folder. That is fair enough - everyone has a right to request their upsetting details be kept private. However that isn't sufficient if we are speaking of purging the subconscious energy bubbles.

Firstly it's not sufficient to speak in general terms - it has to be done in great detail, such that the past is brought back to life. It has to bring up the entire emotional life of that past event. It is best, as Lori has done, to pick off single events, and describe them in detail - try to mention all the little side matters, like the colours of things, or smells, or a person walking by etc.

Secondly, it has to be shared with a wide group - the request that things be kept secret is just another way of keeping them. To set them free we have to tell the world, without fear of being quoted outside a small select group.

So I have a recommendation to Juhani. That he start to write about his traumatic past events in this way. And to first test the waters by posting them here in Soma.

[Builder]

So I have a recommendation to Juhani. That he start to write about his traumatic past events in this way. And to first test the waters by posting them here in Soma.

Why would I do it for a second time?
I went through my life story systematically from 2001-2004 (but started the preparations and learning the methods earlier). Wrote it down and pulled the energy out. When doing recap was on the agenda, I posted about it - described the sensations and methods. Now I recapitulate every single day.

[Firestarter]

Then don't be so desperate to invoke them.
Instead of fussing around, getting stuck in thorns and complaining, simply do your job.

Okay Juhani stop being so stupid. You are being very stupid.

Lori is just as much a part of Soma as you, and she has every right to post her story in here if she likes. You can choose to read it or not read it. I choose not to read it because I cannot read stories of abuse. I don't want to hear about what Lori went through, I want to hear about her life now, and all the trials and tribs with. That is my choice to do so, as I have a right to read what I so desire. But Im not going to be so arrogant like you to chastize Lori about her "Intent." Her intent is very clear: it is like a recapitulation. So get over yourself Juhani, and if there is something you would like to see, post it. If you don't want to read something, don't read it. But put a sock in it either way, K? Okay.

[Ke-ke wan]

Here is a short snip, near the end of the book that describes my intent -- what I am striving for and what I hope to gain from all of this.

Besides the dreams,  there were a few areas of my life in which Myron haunted me,  or the thought of him spilled over into my daily life.   Sure it was usually in the back of my head,  not foremost in my mind,  but the truth is it was a very long time until I could truly say that a day went by that I didn’t think of him,  or his actions or our horrible life together. 

Sometimes,  even though he was many miles away and we had been separated for many years,  he would find a way to sneak back into my life.  He’d find a way to torment me across the miles and make sure that I wasn’t living a peaceful,  easy life. 

So it was  one Summer day,  all was quiet in my house,  the kids were playing outside and I had a day off from work.  I was going about my business in the usual way,  a little housework,  some surfing the internet,  a little working on some of my books.   Suddenly, out of the silence the phone rang.   And with that ring came an eerie sense of dread.  A feeling I knew too well yet still sometimes forgot to pay heed.  And so this time, when the phone rang, I answered it.   



What met me on the other end was Myron’s gruff voice, accusatory, icy and critical. I knew the voice all too well.  And even after months – perhaps  years of not speaking with him, his tone was the same, his demeanor hadn’t changed.  He was still angry, still unhappy, still intimidating.  It was obvious from his words that he still blamed me for his not being able to see the kids.  And he wanted me to know it.

I listened quietly to his harsh words, thinking momentarily that I should stand up to him, should stick up for myself.  I pondered telling him that Jake’s real birthday,  which was apparently the reason for his call,  was August the 12th , 2 days ago and not the 14th like he thought.  But I remembered all the times I had reminded him of this fact only to have my words fall on deaf ears. So I said nothing.

I contemplated telling him that there was no need for him to raise his voice to me, to talk to me in such a manner. But it was a fleeting thought and my fear and insecurities took over and I said nothing.  I clammed up, my jaw jammed and I stood dumbfounded on my end of the conversation, just as I had been all those years ago.

Wishing I hadn’t answered the phone,  I was frozen in my footsteps and my jaw was wired shut.   There were so many things I wish I would have said to him,  things I wish I would have done,  or wouldn’t have done.  I wish I wouldn’t have answered the phone.    If only I had just let it ring.   But I didn’t.   I answered the phone.   

I answered the phone.


That one phone call led to a small setback of sorts.   It led to a partial regression in my self esteem,  self worth and in my being able to trust those I was close to.  But thankfully as time wears on, each minor setback gets smaller and smaller every time.   

One day I know,  Myron will call and I will answer the phone.  And I’ll be calm, cool and collected as if I were talking to a vacuum cleaner salesperson.  I won’t get anxious,  my heart won’t begin to race and I wont feel fear boiling in my veins.  I’ll be nonchalant and confident when I hang up the phone after having spoken with Myron for the very last time and I’ll say to myself with pride “I answered the phone.  Yes, I answered the phone.”

[Builder]

Okay Juhani stop being so stupid. You are being very stupid.

Lori is just as much a part of Soma as you, and she has every right to post her story in here if she likes. You can choose to read it or not read it. I choose not to read it because I cannot read stories of abuse. I don't want to hear about what Lori went through, I want to hear about her life now, and all the trials and tribs with. That is my choice to do so, as I have a right to read what I so desire. But Im not going to be so arrogant like you to chastize Lori about her "Intent." Her intent is very clear: it is like a recapitulation. So get over yourself Juhani, and if there is something you would like to see, post it. If you don't want to read something, don't read it. But put a sock in it either way, K? Okay.

I deleted the post Lori quoted above. She as a moderator of this thread put it up there.

I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she apparently wanted to me to post here.